This cabinet card portrait is both interesting and sad. The photograph shows a family of five in mourning. They are dressed in dark clothing and on the table that they are sitting or standing by, is a cabinet card post-mortem photograph of a baby. On the reverse of this cabinet card is the inscription “Carrie Picture”. Clearly, someone has identified the baby as being named “Carrie”. This photograph was taken at the Bannister studio in St. Johns, Michigan. The Michigan Directory of Photographers reports that he operated his St Johns studio in 1895. The directory provides no first name for Mr. Bannister. It is my hypothesis that the photographer of the cabinet card portrait was Frank T. Bannister. He is listed as a photographer in the 1885 business directory for Saginaw, Michigan. He also appears in the 1910 US census as a photographer residing in New Richmond, Wisconsin.

I own a cabinet card of an infant. Such a beautiful, special infant. I’ll never know anything about this child, but because of the great art of photography, she will always hold a place in my heart. The photographer captured a joy-filled little rosebud. In the “dear dead days” of the past, such innocence was treasured.